


Conflict Management

by acercrea



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, angsty fluff, fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acercrea/pseuds/acercrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Manu is trying deny that he is mad, which makes Thomas mad. How do they work it out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conflict Management

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own anything you recognize, this is just for fun.

Manu had been in a foul mood for over a week and I wasn’t sure what I could do about it. I wasn’t even sure what was wrong, but he was slamming cabinet doors, he was barely speaking, hardly sleeping, and he was behaving erratically at practice.

I slowly figured out what was bothering him. He was angry that we lost our last three matches and he was blaming himself. Normally, because it was so rare for him to be in a bad mood at all, I for the most part would let him stew until he was ready to talk to me about it. Which was the plan for a couple of days until I saw him almost decapitate poor Mario at practice when he threw a ball back into play after someone managed to get it passed his near flawless keeping with a bit too much vigor. I realized at that point that I had to do something to bring my Manu back.

After practice Manu showered and changed so quickly that he was waiting for me at the car before I had even toweled off. I was pretty sure that he might have left me there if he was the one who had the keys because as I walked up I saw a hard look in his eyes that I had only seen a couple of times. It was the stubborn, resigned look he gets when he knows we need to talk but doesn’t want to.

We were both silent as we got into the car and were halfway home before I finally opened my mouth to say something, but before I could finish taking the breath he turned his head away and said in a quiet voice, “Just drive, Thomas.”

I turned my head to look at him briefly, judging that for the moment not talking was the better option. As I focused back on the road I became aware of the heavy feeling that had settled in the car. It was almost tangible, like a third person sitting in the car where we would usually have our entwined fingers resting between us. His body was angled as far away from me as he could get it without being overt about it, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the scenery flood past his window.

I had barely stopped the car in the garage before he was out and grabbing his training bag from the back seat. He had crossed the room to the door that lead to the rest of the house before I had even opened my car door, and was rummaging for his keys in his bag while I retrieved own gym bag. He was still rummaging when I came up behind him and softly spoke, “Manu?”

He stiffened in response, his hand stilling, shoulders hunching up around his ears as he resolutely refused to turn to look at me. When it became clear that that was the only response I was going to get I continued, “I have the key, will you step aside so I can open the door?”

“Sure,” he grunted, sliding over slightly so that I could insert the key into the door and then pushing past me so that he could enter the house, my keys being pulled free from my hand in his haste to get the door open.

I was so shocked that before I knew it I had called his name out and he had stilled in the hallway, his back still to me. “What Thomas?” he asked with a weary tone in his voice, as though I was the one being unreasonable.

“Are we going to talk about this or not?” I snapped, feeling anger start to well up unbidden from deep inside, churning like acid in my stomach.

“No, Thomas, we are not going to talk about it, is that ok with you?” he shouted back, finally turning around to face me, fire burning in his eyes.

“Fine, then grab your gloves, we are going into the garden,” I called back, pushing past him into the kitchen and walking straight through to the garden. I sat on the back steps and pulled back on my cleats. I was just lacing them up when Manu stomped past me, his own cleats clacking against the steps, affixing his gloves to his hands. I grabbed the bag of footballs that we have stashed by the gate as I walked through and into the reason we purchased this house in the first place. The house had been pretty incredible, but the biggest selling point was that there was a backyard big enough for a regulation football pitch. Which we had put in immediately after the house had been declared officially ours and played largely into conflict resolution in our household. When it wasn’t being used by our friends when we hosted parties.

“Are you warm?” I asked, as I dumped the balls out of the bag and lined them up on the far box line and squared up to Manu in the net.

“Yes, let’s just do this,” Manu sighed, adjusting the strap on his gloves.

“Do you agree to the rules?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied simply.

“Then recite the conditions,” I prompted.

“I will answer honestly one question for every ball you can get past me and you get 10 shots,” Manu complied, getting into his penalty stance, his face an unfeeling mask.

“Great. Here we go,” I replied, taking a couple of steps back before winding up and taking my first shot. Manu caught it cleanly in his hands.

I wasn’t able to get anything past him until the 7th shot. “Why are you angry?” I asked.

“I’m not angry,” he replied simply with a shrug.

“You have to tell the truth, Manu,” I reminded him.

“I am telling the truth. Anger is not the emotion I am feeling,” he told me.

I took my next shot which also went in, and for a second I saw his carefully placed expression slip just a little bit. “If you are not angry, then why did you almost decapitate Mario at practice today?” I asked him.

“I was disappointed that a shot had gotten by me,” he answered evenly.

I lined up my shot and fired, the ball sailing just past Manu’s fingertips. “So disappointed that you almost take off the head of someone who is always happy, always smiling, would never wish anything bad on anyone ever, someone who is basically the living embodiment of the sun?” I asked him.

“I overreacted,” he shrugged.

My last ball sailed into the far side of the net and I asked, “Why did you overreact?”

“Because there is a lot of pressure involved with being the best keeper in the world and sometimes I let it get the best of me, in spite of myself. Now, we are done here, so I am going to go inside and make dinner, do you want pasta with veggies or chicken with potatoes?” he asked, his voice flat and even, no trace of inflection in his carefully chosen words as he walked towards the house, his back turned to me.

“We are not done here,” I called to his retreating form.

He paused at the gate, and without turning around he replied, “Yes we are, Thomas. You had your chance, and you asked me 4 questions. I answered them all, it is not my fault if you didn’t like the answers you received, but we are in fact done here. Now I am famished and exhausted, so I am going to make us dinner so we can go to bed. And we are having pasta.”

I felt my own anger reassert itself and before I could think about what I was saying I had shouted at his back, “God damn it, it is not your fault we lost, Manu!”

“Yes it is!” he replied, whipping around and striding over to tower over me, his anger making him seem taller. “I let Aubamayang score, then in the penalties I let them score twice, and when it was my turn I hit the crossbar. I could have kept us in that game, I should have won that game for us. And then when we lost to Leverkusen, I let them get the better of me again. But I told myself that that game didn’t matter, because we already won the Bundesliga, so I should be focusing on getting myself ready for Barcelona, they were the biggest immediate threat we had left. And then I messed up. They scored 3 times and that is all on me. I stopped Messi and Neymar in Brazil no problem. But on Wednesday they made me look like an amateur. And that is all my fault,” he replied, his façade wavering once again.

“No, it isn’t. We are a team, Manu. And we let you down,” I told him.

All at once, his mask fell away and I saw my Manu again as he crumbled and dissolved into tears. I brought him to my chest as he slumped to the ground, and I cradled him as he wept, rocking him gently.

We sat like that for a while, him weeping and me comforting him, as he let all the weight I have seen on his shoulders lately fall away. When he stopped crying and his breathing was back to normal, I broke the silence by saying, “I know you put all of this ridiculous pressure on yourself, but sometimes I think it is too much. There are 10 other guys on that pitch, and we share the triumph of every victory and the responsibility of every loss. Honestly, when was the last time Fips or Xabi slipped at all, let alone while taking a penalty? And Mario missed his too, don’t forget that. Then there is the fact that we are heavily injured right now, and we all need a break. Barcelona was a tough match. They didn’t let us rest for a second, and we made some mistakes. But we have another chance to prove that we are of the same caliber. I know we can beat them, and when we meet them next we are going to try our hardest to make everyone else believe it too. Because that is what we do at Bayern. We win.”

“Yeah, we win,” he agreed. “I’m sorry I was an ass.”

“I am sorry I provoked you into admitting what was wrong, so we are even. We may want to rethink our conflict management strategy, though. You know, for the next time we have a real fight,” I replied.

His answering laugh was warm as he replied, “You mean kicking a ball at each other so that we can avoid having real conversations is not a good form of open communication for a relationship? But it is so much fun.”

“Ok, fine, you have been right for months, it is stupid, are you happy?” I asked, conceding that my suggestion that we resolve all of our conflicts on the pitch did not have as much merit as I thought.

“Very happy, Thomas,” he smiled, leaning over to kiss me on the lips. My heartbeat picked up a little as his lips moved over mine and he brought his hand up to caress my cheek. I melted into the kiss and before I knew it my heart was racing as I tangled my hands in his hair, trying to hold him closer as our tongues waged a tiny war. We pulled away with a chuckle as my stomach started to rumble.

“Your stomach sounds very impatient, Thomas. We should get you something to eat before you start to waste away. We can clean up the pitch when we are done eating,” Manu said, detangling himself from my grasp.

“Hey Manu?” I asked as he pulled me off of the ground.

“Yes, Thomas, we can have chicken instead of pasta,” Manu rolled his eyes at me, a smile still on his lips.

“How do you always read my mind like that?” I asked, as we started to walk hand in hand back toward the house.

“Thomas we have been best friends for years, and that was before we started this ridiculous relationship. Like you, I don’t read your mind as much as I just know you better than anyone else on the planet,” Manu replied simply.

“I love you, too, Manu,” I told him, resting my head on his shoulder as we walked.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So this one has been sitting on my computer in a much different form for a while, but recent events made me realize that now was the time to brush it off and rework it so I could finally post it. If you liked it let me know by leaving me kudos and if you really liked it or want to request a fic you can let me know by leaving me a comment.


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